A Selfless Act
by Elma MacBetsy
Summary: Two and a half months since the infarction, and he still sometimes forgets


**So, this is my first published attempt at House fic! I have a couple of other things written, but I haven't quite decided what I'm doing with them yet. **

**And I know that this is hardly an original idea. Every House writer on here must have done some post-infarction, pre-show thing. But I wanted to give it a go anyway**

**Disclaimer: House isn't mine...but you already know that.**

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Two and a half months since the infarction, and he still sometimes forgets.

Tonight is one of those times.

He left his cane on the other side of the sofa, and because it's not with him, he forgets that it should be.

He stands from the piano bench.

He steps forward with the wrong leg.

He forgets why he's falling until his body hits the floor and the pain flares up in his thigh.

One hand hovers over his leg, wanting to grasp and squeeze, but knowing that it will only hurt more.

The other reaches straight for the bottle in his pocket.

Two pills, and he can sit up.

Two more, and he can half-crawl, half-drag himself to the arm of the couch.

He tries to decide if it's worth trying to stand up or if he should just wait until Wilson comes over.

Another two still don't stop the pain.

He considers the third option of swallowing his pride, picking up the phone, and asking Wilson to come now.

The idea doesn't sit well, so instead he swallows a further two pills, and waits.

Eight pills in about as many minutes is a lot, he realises, and for a moment he listens to an imaginary-Wilson-lecture about

_that one guy he saw in the clinic who wasn't in pain but took Vicodin anyway and how dependence and addiction can lead to overdose and liver failure and a whole bunch of other really nasty things_

He almost smiles when he realises that he's tipped more pills into his palm, the same response he has to real-Wilson-lectures.

He reluctantly returns them to the bottle because his mind is becoming pleasantly fuzzy and his leg is hurting an almost-tolerable amount and he thinks he can probably stand up now.

Except he _can't_, and he wishes that this could be happening the night before when he'd been blind drunk so that he could blame it on the alcohol but tonight he is completely sober and it's _all_ the leg.

For the first time he fully recognises the consequences of losing half your thigh muscles: his leg doesn't just _hurt_, it doesn't _work_ either.

He finds himself laughing because

_no wonder Stacy left_

She's gorgeous and clever with a fantastic career and has a whole healthy life ahead of her of being gorgeous and clever with a fantastic career and she definitely shouldn't be wasting her time with a

_fucking cripple who can't even stand up by himself because his fucking leg can't take the weight_

It hurts even more when he realises that Wilson is also gorgeous and clever with a fantastic career and has a whole healthy life ahead of him of being gorgeous and clever with a fantastic career, and that if Stacy is anything to go by, the relationship will end just as fast as it began, faster if Wilson has to waste his time taking care of a

_fucking cripple who can't even stand up by himself because his fucking leg can't take the weight_

He grabs his Vicodin and pours out a handful and swallows them while he can still pretend it's a selfless act.

* * *

Something presses against the back of his throat and he's rolled over in time to throw up.

The world becomes clearer when he's turned face-up again.

Wilson is leaning over him, and of _course_ he's going to be angry and-

"What the hell were you trying to do?!"

-and the _words_ are right but the _tone_ is _wrong_, and Wilson's not angry, he's worried which is _bad_ because at least House knows how to react to anger.

A range of different excuses flit across his mind but he stays silent, because Wilson already _knows_ what House was trying to do so it doesn't matter what he says.

"You almost _died_!"

He tries to decide if that's bad or good, if he wanted to _die_ or _almost_ die, but right now he's not sure.

Wilson looks concerned now.

"Maybe I should call an ambulance…"

"M'fine," House finally mumbles, because going to hospital right now is most certainly _not_ fine, because he can at least rely on Wilson to _pretend_ that he doesn't know what happened.

"House…"

"I'm fine," House repeats more clearly.

He makes to sit up and immediately regrets it as he feels vomit climbing up his oesophagus. He wants to swallow it back down and keep it inside, but he knows Wilson wants to purge him of everything that happened tonight, so he relents and lets it happen.

When he's finished, he collapses against Wilson and decides that these are acceptable circumstances to ignore the fact that the other man is stroking his hair and that he actually quite likes it.

"House, if things were getting this bad…"

Wilson trails off, which is fine because House knows how hard it was for him to bring the subject up in the first place, and he doesn't really want to talk about it anyway.

"You could have said…"

"I'm _fine_," House says for the third time, because what else can he say?

Yes, things _were_ bad, but, really, they could have been worse, and besides, what exactly was he meant to have said?

"Right."

For a moment House thinks Wilson is going to try again to give him the speech, to be the responsible one, to attempt to _help_ him, and later he probably will. But for now he just pulls him a little closer, hugging him a little tighter, and House just lets him because he doesn't know a better way to fix this.


End file.
